Call for Caravan: We'll take your money but "No Trade For You"

[erdrik]

I dunno when the diplomatic / trade stuff is planned for improvements, but in the hopes of it coming I have an aggravating event to opine on:

I called a nearby faction and requested a caravan. By the time they showed up a cold snap had hit and they decided to leave the map "due to dangerous temperature". I tried to catch the trader before they left, but they started running off the map at top speed and I couldn't catch them.

I get why this would be considered intentional, and frankly I agree with the idea that they'd flee bad temps.
But I kinda feel both powerless and ripped off. It cost me 700 silver to call them over in the first place and now they are making off with my payment without rendering service.

I have a couple ideas for solutions:
-Visitors ignore my doors anyway, why don't they just come and hunker down in my nice warm base?
And if they ever get code to stop them from entering my doors uninvited: instead of immediately fleeing, why not a popup message requesting that they be allowed entry during the trade event?

-They flee but the trade event is flagged as interuppted, and if the player didn't actually make a trade then new options appears in the Comms Console(for a short period, like 2 or 3 days) for that faction: 1. Demand Refund for failed Caravan trip 2. Demand a New Caravan to replace failed Caravan trip
They don't even have to agree to the demands. They could refuse based on your relations and the colonist's social skill.

[Limdood]

I have a couple ideas for solutions:
-Visitors ignore my doors anyway, why don't they just come and hunker down in my nice warm base?
And if they ever get code to stop them from entering my doors uninvited: instead of immediately fleeing, why not a popup message requesting that they be allowed entry during the trade event?

This would be tough....some bases aren't warmed....some people rely on parkas and tuques to keep warm, and even inside a base, traders would die of hypothermia.  Trying to DETECT a base that is heated would be quite the AI leap...

For the other, non-quoted suggestion, that would involve tracking the trade request for quite some time and implementing a bunch more behaviors for a frankly SUPER RARE circumstance.

I hate some of the bothersome visitor/trader happenings too (i once had my best colonist killed in a fistfight with a visitor, who then walked off like nothing happened....save scummed the HELL out of that one), but they're still really rare, and rather than put a bunch of AI behavioral modifications in, that could (and almost certainly WOULD) cause bugs or unintended interactions with other features, it is much simpler to either accept it (and post it in the stories forum to give someone else less invested a chuckle) or go into dev mode and "correct" the situation (spawn 700 silver back for yourself, or spawn a trader event....or kill that SoB visitor who punched my pawn to death)

[milon]

It could actually be fairly simple to solve. We need a new Thing/Zone that designates a trade area. Visiting caravans & traders would go there by default. (Perhaps the local beauty & impressiveness could become a factor in trade or faction relations.)

If an on-map caravan is threatened somehow (raiders, hostile faction, manhunter animals, unsafe temperature, toxic fallout, etc) then the game checks the trade area to determine if it's safe (indoors, good temp, no hostiles, maybe food available, etc). If so, the caravan flees to the trade area. Player is responsible to protect them, or takes a relationship hit. If it's not safe, the caravan flees the map.

Tangent suggestion:
Add a wandering merchant event, 1+ "factionless" pawns with lots of rare/valuable goods, heavily armed, expensive prices, and lots of silver.

[skullywag]

Set point where a building would fit. Build temp building and camp fire. Hang around inside buikding to trade. Dismantle everything when they leave. That shouldnt be too hard to code.

[erdrik]

This would be tough....some bases aren't warmed....some people rely on parkas and tuques to keep warm, and even inside a base, traders would die of hypothermia.  Trying to DETECT a base that is heated would be quite the AI leap...

What leap? Colonists already do this. JobGiver_SeekSafeTemperature is right there in the ThinkTree.
That means the code to find a safe temp on the map already exists.
If they had Parka's they wouldn't have left. The point is that if they don't have parka's and there is a sudden cold snap then they should request shelter if my base is warm.

I don't see a problem in applying code that already exists to a group in a way that makes sense. The only additional code needed would be the popup request and applying the existing JobGiver to the Caravan. Maybe modifying it a bit to have a stronger weight/account for not having any other jobs like my colonists would.

... it is much simpler to either accept it (and post it in the stories forum to give someone else less invested a chuckle)

So is having no other building material than steel, but we've long since moved beyond that.

...or go into dev mode and "correct" the situation (spawn 700 silver back for yourself, or spawn a trader event....or kill that SoB visitor who punched my pawn to death)

Screw that. Dev mode ain't going to be in the final version. This is still an alpha, why are you acting like the suggestions forum isn't for suggesting changes or improvements to move to the release version of the game?

[Limdood]

first of all, i'm saying some people rely on parkas on THEIR OWN colonists to keep warm, and have bases with no warm spots at all.  The sea ice challenge from A16 comes to mind.  Cold snaps usually affect most bases pretty seriously anyways and might push even a tolerable base into dangerous cold, not solving the problem.  Additionally adding more jobs to caravans will only complicate performance issues that already arise when they come on the map, and each new behavior has potential to interact badly with other activities.

As to the rest of my post, i'm commenting on the wasted effort of spending time coding a fix for an EXTREMELY rare issue.  You already can't call traders if it is too cold for them, so the ONLY way this circumstance can happen is a cold snap happening to hit right on the day(s) following you calling for a trade caravan AND it just happening to push the temp into dangerous territory.  Your false equivalency of comparing dealing with a super rare happening to being the same as not wanting new building materials is, frankly, insulting. 

The issue MAY be easy to fix.  It MIGHT not have any problems with other code.  It COULD still allow the game to run normally with no extra slowdown.  There's a CHANCE that one fix would solve the problem in every case.  But i'm betting it isn't that easy. 

Effort vs. Payoff.  Even suggestions that are ONLY improvements and no one would ever have a problem with them being implemented might not be worth implementing because most people won't notice any change, and that's time that could be spent working on other things (and new code that needs to be tested for proper interaction with every future addition)

[erdrik]

first of all, i'm saying some people rely on parkas on THEIR OWN colonists to keep warm, and have bases with no warm spots at all.  The sea ice challenge from A16 comes to mind.  Cold snaps usually affect most bases pretty seriously anyways and might push even a tolerable base into dangerous cold, not solving the problem.  ...

In which case they would leave, as was part of my suggestion.
They would ask for shelter IF there is a warm spot. In the case there isn't, its my fault for calling them to a base with no suitable warm spot to rest at. But if I do have a warm base, then them leaving without so much as asking for shelter is just them stealing my silver.

Effort vs. Payoff.  ...

Which is not your place to determine. You admit yourself you don't know how much effort it would take. Near as I can tell the only effort needed would be hooking in another diplomatic action. Hence why I started my suggestion implying it be apart of some future Diplomatic/Trade Update. That way the effort is getting rolled together into something that is presumably going to get done anyway.

[ItsEddy]

Maybe make caravans can predict weather, so they can arrive with right clothing can solve this problem? I believe the "leave due to bad temperature" thing is to prevent potential exploit to rob caravan without attack them, making them can overcome temperature danger themselves can also prevent this.